As one of the world’s oldest industries, mining is slowly but surely embracing technology with increasing speed and zest. While maximizing productivity and revenue growth are the primary drivers of digitization, mining companies are also adopting new technologies and deploying a range of connected applications to address many of the industry’s pervasive challenges including:
- Unrelenting Demand:New mines will be needed to meet the expanding demand for materials to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles, smartphones, solar panels, and wind turbines. Existing mines will need to operate with maximum productivity and efficiency.
- Labor Availability: An aging workforce and migration of younger workers to other industries have led to significant labor stresses for mining companies, elevating the urgency to introduce autonomous and remote operations.
- Environmental Compliance: As additional requirements to curb environmentally harmful practices across all industries are introduced, the mining industry – believed to be responsible for nearly 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions – is challenged with maintaining compliance.
- Worker Safety: With mining ranking among the highest industries in fatal work injury rates, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, worker safety remains a pervasive and dominant issue in an inherently dangerous business.
While technology can certainly help mining companies address these and other challenges, the ability for connected applications and digital solutions to function properly and deliver intended value depends heavily on the availability of robust and ubiquitous connectivity. As 5G coverage is typically only present in populated urban and suburban areas, where mines are rarely found, satellite-powered communications must be part of any mining operators’ communications solution suite.
Satellite-powered connectivity solutions are more powerful, resilient, reliable, cost-effective, and accessible than ever before, offering mine owners and operators new benefits and opportunities:
- Global Reach: With an unhindered view of the planet, satellites provide coverage across the vastness of the Earth, closing gaps in terrestrial coverage and making it the ideal connectivity option for applications like autonomous and remote control that require constant, uninterrupted connectivity even in the most remote locations.
- Reliably Redundant: Satellite solutions offer enhanced communication redundancy, expanding the reach of terrestrial networks to ensure that heavy equipment used during daily mining activities can continue operating anywhere on the worksite, even outside the wireless network coverage footprint.
- Meeting Speed and Latency Needs: Multi-orbit satellite connectivity combines the breadth, reliability, and global coverage of geostationary satellites with the low latency attributes of low Earth orbit constellations to meet the speed, coverage, and latency standards demanded by data-hungry applications.
- Reduced Cost of Ownership: With the costs of deploying satellite solutions now favorable as compared to 5G, and with less upfront capital investment required, mining operators today can incorporate satellite connectivity to digitally transform their operations without breaking the bank.
- Achieving Sustainability Goals: Satellite connectivity can power the applications that mining operators need to decarbonize, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, achieve sustainability goals, and remain in compliance with the always-emerging regulations that vary by country, state, county, and province. Satellites can also transmit real-time telematics data needed to monitor equipment, reduce idle times, and optimize fuel consumption, all of which dramatically reduce carbon and greenhouse gas outputs.
As mining companies continue to turn to technology to face challenges head-on, satellites are making the digitization and modernization of the industry possible. With access to the connectivity that digital and connected applications require, mining companies can meet increasing demand, navigate widespread labor shortages, comply with expanding regulatory pressures, address pervasive safety concerns, and ultimately optimize mining operations to accelerate revenue growth and stay ahead of the competition.
Go here to learn more about the challenges mining crews face and the emerging technologies to keep them connected.
